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Stas Bush wrote:Interpreting the events as very accurate artillery or missiles is the natural thing to do, especially once they discover missile fragments near to the destroyed machinery. Of course, the tech level gap is immense and will be shocking, but given the knowledge of the circumstances I think they can understand it, not just go 'it's magic!'. I mean, come on. The newspapers show the date and time, one can make the necessary connections.

Every single library I've ever seen has a copy of Jane's in it, normally several. Any amateur wargamer worth his salt has a few copies around. Toss in historians, schools and the like and the Germans have a dozen methods to find out the capabilities of American warfighting or at least the civilian released capabilities which is good enough for the German generals to plan around.

And that's without any American collaborators showing them anything.

Mr Bean wrote: Every single library I've ever seen has a copy of Jane's in it, normally several. Any amateur wargamer worth his salt has a few copies around. Toss in historians, schools and the like and the Germans have a dozen methods to find out the capabilities of American warfighting or at least the civilian released capabilities which is good enough for the German generals to plan around.

And that's without any American collaborators showing them anything.

Do the Germans even have a concept of programming a microprocessor if collaborators show them anything, bearing in mind that all semiconductors made before the late 1950's were utterly useless and pure science and couldn't be called technology? Are a few of their 500,000 engineers and technicians capable of taking a crash course in 70 years of technology growth? Because I'm pretty sure that's how most of these systems are handled these days...

Gaidin wrote:

Mr Bean wrote: Every single library I've ever seen has a copy of Jane's in it, normally several. Any amateur wargamer worth his salt has a few copies around. Toss in historians, schools and the like and the Germans have a dozen methods to find out the capabilities of American warfighting or at least the civilian released capabilities which is good enough for the German generals to plan around.

And that's without any American collaborators showing them anything.

Do the Germans even have a concept of programming a microprocessor if collaborators show them anything, bearing in mind that all semiconductors made before the late 1950's were utterly useless and pure science and couldn't be called technology? Are a few of their 500,000 engineers and technicians capable of taking a crash course in 70 years of technology growth? Because I'm pretty sure that's how most of these systems are handled these days...

What? I'm talking about obvious things like F-15 have an X mile range and can carry X amount of bombs or the Tomahawk missile has X range with X warhead

Mr Bean wrote: What? I'm talking about obvious things like F-15 have an X mile range and can carry X amount of bombs or the Tomahawk missile has X range with X warhead

Well yea, but when you drop them next to a city like Atlanta that has a pretty decent public University with the at least the next five technological epochs for them just sitting their on the shelves...nobody's really accounted for the fact that we've handed them 500,000 technical people that may or may not have been pulled into where they are just because that's where they're needed but now here's an opportunity to try to actually understand what's happening in front of your face for the price of 50 out of 500,000...

Mr Bean wrote:What? I'm talking about obvious things like F-15 have an X mile range and can carry X amount of bombs or the Tomahawk missile has X range with X warhead

I'm going to assume that the Germans will have people with enough English skill to read these books, so the real question is will they think to look for them at all? Back in World War Two something like a Jane's guide wouldn't have been a common read and the information they had on enemy (and allied) vehicles would be second hand and inaccurate at best as each side tried to keep technologies secret. So would the Germans have any reason to trust these guides as anything other than propaganda, and more importantly, how quickly would command trust the information and start making changes based upon it?

Just because the smart guys may understand it doesn't mean that the rank and file will. Plus, it's all in English, thus requiring translation into German for most of them to comprehend.

Why should rank and file understand it? Rank and file rarely have the whole picture of what is going on on the front.

Stas Bush wrote:In case you don't see it they will likely interpret it as an advanced form of guided artillery or something. After all, you don't see the coming projectile that's gonna blow up your whole platoon too. In case they see nothing how can they be scared of the technology? They would assume they are getting hit by artillery from BVR.

Because it hits them from places no artillery could feasibly reach, it hits aircraft in midair, it hits targets with such uncanny first-shot accuracy that the best gunners in the world couldn't match...

True, as Simon said they can be unaware of this fate. But... then again, they can also consider a bargaining chip in the form of Atlanta civilians a better negotiation lever than nothing at all.

Well, there's a catch. Suppose you take hostages: they accomplish nothing for you if you don't have demands. Demands that result in you being somehow able to release the hostages and escape the area safely.

What can 17-20 million German soldiers conceivably demand of the US government, that the US government would realistically be willing and able to provide, that would actually help those soldiers? Because the government's not just going to up and surrender to Nazi occupation forces purely due to a threat to the Atlanta civilians.

Simon_Jester wrote: What can 17-20 million German soldiers conceivably demand of the US government, that the US government would realistically be willing and able to provide, that would actually help those soldiers? Because the government's not just going to up and surrender to Nazi occupation forces purely due to a threat to the Atlanta civilians.

You might be thinking along the wrong lines. If they can get to Atlanta they can get to the CDC. How fast can the Federal Government clear out the CDC?

Would the Germans know about the CDC? If so, they know about the depositories of smallpox and other viruses there? If so, would they be able to weaponize it? If they somehow manged to do so, wouldn't that pretty much wipe out any chance they may have had of a negotiated surrender?

Note the large number of ifs in that sentence. They'd probably consider the CDC to be (if anything) just a hospital or medical research lab. At worst, if our drones indicate they're entering the building, just bomb it with a few fuel-air bombs. That should vaporize anything dangerous in the building. A nuke would be preferable but even a small one might cause too much damage to downtown Atlanta since it's only a few miles away.

Borgholio wrote:Would the Germans know about the CDC? If so, they know about the depositories of smallpox and other viruses there? If so, would they be able to weaponize it? If they somehow manged to do so, wouldn't that pretty much wipe out any chance they may have had of a negotiated surrender?

Note the large number of ifs in that sentence. They'd probably consider the CDC to be (if anything) just a hospital or medical research lab. At worst, if our drones indicate they're entering the building, just bomb it with a few fuel-air bombs. That should vaporize anything dangerous in the building. A nuke would be preferable but even a small one might cause too much damage to downtown Atlanta since it's only a few miles away.

Probably not, but would that matter to us? All we know is that there's suddenly a 17 million man army in that region where we've got a facility where we store and do some of our most dangerous storage and research. You take the hilarious Aliens solution that no sane leader would really take when a set of helicopters and teams when the army is trying to still figure out wtf is going on will do just as well to get the dangerous material out. But nonetheless, does the fact that they don't know matter if the region is compromised?

Well I'm sure some of us would shit a brick if we knew the Germans were rummaging around the CDC. That's why I brought up the fuel air bombs or low-yield nuke. Just obliterate the place rather than take any chances, even if the odds of the Germans doing something bad are slim.

The Germans had plenty of chemical and biological wweapons in WWII and never used them despite the dire straits they found themselves in. There is zero reason tothinkthey would resort to that here.

Would we wait until they're rummaging? Or would it be 'they're an army there...dunno why, but they're figuring themselves out....' 'huh....send in the choppers to get the dangerous stuff out of the CDC before they orient themselves and set up'.

Borgholio wrote:Would the Germans know about the CDC? If so, they know about the depositories of smallpox and other viruses there?

Crap. Screw the Smallpox depository, How many of them might have Smallpox?

TimothyC wrote:

Borgholio wrote:Would the Germans know about the CDC? If so, they know about the depositories of smallpox and other viruses there?

Crap. Screw the Smallpox depository, How many of them might have Smallpox?

The time-displaced Germans might be inoculated, so the smallpox virus might not affect them. Most 21st Americans, however, are not inoculated; if the virus gets out, they're screwed. (I know his because I once applied for a job at a childcare facility, which required applicants to clear a medical exam. The examiners noticed a strange scar on my shoulder, which confused them; they consulted a senior nurse, who determined the scar was from a smallpox inoculation, and noted it was still done in "less developed nations"- like Taiwan, where I was born.)

Just physically getting into vaults at the CDC might well require them to get past electronic locks (not likely) and/or blast their way into safes containing infectious disease samples (sheer burning too-dumb-to-live idiocy).

More importantly I am sure the vials for such things are stored in large automated refrigeration units that and identified by either RFID, barcodes or some other inventory management code. I can only imagine how many thousands of small glass vials are at that place. Once again, a simple windows password thwarts the Wehrmachts best and brightest.

Unless they blast through the doors, thus shattering who knows how many of those vials...

TimothyC wrote:

Borgholio wrote:Would the Germans know about the CDC? If so, they know about the depositories of smallpox and other viruses there?

Crap. Screw the Smallpox depository, How many of them might have Smallpox?

None. Smallpox innoculation was mandatory in Germany at that time and had been for over 100 years. Heck, in some states it became mandatory as early as 1805 (1815 for Prussia). So I can't see them spreading the disease.

There are a few others to be worried about such as typhus depending on if these Germans are lifted direct from the front or not, I don't think it will matter much to the conflict given the time tables most of us have been talking about.

Thanas wrote:None. Smallpox innoculation was mandatory in Germany at that time and had been for over 100 years. Heck, in some states it became mandatory as early as 1805 (1815 for Prussia). So I can't see them spreading the disease.

Hm. I stand corrected.

Borgholio wrote:Unless they blast through the doors, thus shattering who knows how many of those vials...

Unless they apprehend who ever is in charge of the inventory and hold a gun to their head.

Whoever is in charge of the inventory would probably be thinking about the choice between a bullet to the head, and dying in a fireball once someone notices a bunch of Nazis in the CDC labs.

I personally would take the bullet to the head.

It's not a foregone conclusion that whoever is in charge of the infectious disease inventories at the CDC can be coerced. Maybe they can- but doctors are one of those groups where sometimes you get very committed, dedicated people.

[Please don't take this as me asserting a certainty. I'm pointing out a plausible complication.]